Democrat congressional candidate Nicole Locklin is going to court to compel the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections to release outstanding records from the November 3 general election, escalating her push for answers after her publicly reported vote total dropped on Election Night in Florida’s surprisingly competitive 26th Congressional District race.
Locklin is seeking timestamped results, vote-counting logs, and records of the data Miami-Dade transmitted to state election officials, along with an immediate court hearing and prompt access to existing records subject to disclosure.
"Public records laws are there so the public can see how its government works," Locklin said in a statement announcing the civil lawsuit. "We have asked for records that can help answer questions about the reporting of this election. When those records are not produced, asking a court to enforce the law is a reasonable next step. We will keep pursuing a clear, evidence-based account of what happened."
The suit, brought under Florida’s public records law, names the Miami-Dade County Supervisor of Elections Alina García. It was filed Thursday.
The litigation follows an unexpectedly tight race against incumbent Republican U.S. Rep. Mario Díaz-Balart across a congressional district redrawn earlier this year to span parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties.
According to the latest figures posted by the Florida Division of Elections, Díaz-Balart led with 114,578 votes (49.86%) to Locklin’s 112,874 votes (49.12%), while no-party-affiliation candidate Deborah Ann Meidinger Hosey received 2,352 votes (1.02%). The margin of 1,704 votes—roughly 0.74%—fell just outside Florida's 0.5% threshold for an automatic machine recount.
Although Díaz-Balart declared victory the day after the election and the Associated Press called the race in his favor on Nov. 9, Locklin declined to concede. She maintained that she held a 2,545-vote advantage late on election night before that lead suddenly disappeared from public tallies without explanation.
The Associated Press reported that a manual data entry error caused an inflated vote total to briefly appear for Locklin before it was quickly identified and corrected.
Locklin, however, has argued that the explanation remains incomplete and cited conflicting accounts between the wire service and county election officials.
For Locklin, obtaining the county's raw reporting logs and state transmission records remains central to verifying how the election-night figures were compiled and why the publicly reported totals shifted.
